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Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Vatican City, 7 July 2015 (VIS) –
Yesterday more than a million people attended the Pope's first Mass
in Ecuador, in Guayaquil. He first visited the Shrine of Divine
Mercy, the city's second largest place of worship, built at the
behest of Archbishop Antonio Arregui Yarza between 2009 and 2014 and
able to hold 2,300 people.

Upon arrival at the Shrine, the Holy
Father was welcomed by an immense crowd, with whom he prayed a Hail
Mary before leaving the temple, and whom he greeted with the
following words: “Now I will celebrate Mass, and I hold you all in
my heart. I will ask for each one of you, I will say to the Lord,
'You know the names of those who were there'. I will ask Jesus for
great mercy for every one of you; I will ask Him to care for you and
to cover you with His mercy. May Our Lady always be by your side”.

“And now, before I leave – because
I am on my way to Mass, and the archbishop tells me we are running
out of time – I give you my blessing … I am not asking you to
give me anything! But I ask you, please, to pray for me. Will you
promise me? May God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit, bless you. Thank you for your Christian witness”.

The Pope then travelled the 25
kilometres that separate the Shrine from Samanes Park, where he
celebrated Holy Mass specially dedicated to families. The Gospel
reading recounted the wedding at Cana, and in his homily the Pope
focused on Mary who expresses to Jesus her concern as the newly-weds
have no wine.

“The wedding at Cana is repeated in
every generation, in every family, in every one of us and our efforts
to let our hearts find rest in strong love, fruitful love and joyful
love. Let us make room for Mary, 'the Mother' as the evangelist calls
her. Let us journey with her now to Cana.

“Mary is attentive, she is attentive
in the course of this wedding feast, she is concerned for the needs
of the newly-weds. She is not closed in on herself, worried only
about her little world. Her love makes her 'outgoing' towards
others. She does not seek her friends to say what is happening, to
criticise the poor organisation of the wedding feast. And since she
is attentive, she discretely notices that the wine has run out. Wine
is a sign of happiness, love and plenty. How many of our adolescents
and young people sense that these is no longer any of that wine to be
found in their homes? How many women, sad and lonely, wonder when
love left, when it slipped away from their lives? How many elderly
people feel left out of family celebrations, cast aside and longing
each day for a little love, from their sons and daughters, their
grandchildren, their great grandchildren? This lack of this 'wine'
can also be due to unemployment, illness and difficult situations
which our families around the world may experience. Mary is not a
'demanding' mother, nor a mother-in-law who revels in our lack of
experience, our mistakes and the things we forget to do. Mary, quite
simply, is a Mother! She is there, attentive and concerned. It is
gratifying to hear this: Mary is a Mother! I invite you to repeat
this with me: Mary is a Mother! Once again: Mary is a Mother! And
once more: Mary is a Mother!

“But Mary, at the very moment she
perceives that there is no wine, approaches Jesus with confidence:
this means that Mary prays. She goes to Jesus, she prays. She does
not go to the steward, she immediately tells her Son of the
newly-weds' problem. The response she receives seems disheartening:
'What does it have to do with you and me? My hour has not yet come'.
But she nonetheless places the problem in God’s hands. Her deep
concern to meet the needs of others hastens Jesus’ hour. And Mary
was a part of that hour, from the cradle to the cross. She was able
'to turn a stable into a home for Jesus, with poor swaddling clothes
and an abundance of love'. She accepted us as her sons and daughters
when the sword pierced her son’s heart. She teaches us to put our
families in God’s hands; she teaches us to pray, to kindle the hope
which shows us that our concerns are also God’s concerns.

“Praying always lifts us out of our
worries and concerns. It makes us rise above everything that hurts,
upsets or disappoints us, and helps to put ourselves in the place of
others, in their shoes. The family is a school where prayer also
reminds us that we are not isolated individuals; we are one and we
have a neighbour close at hand: he or she is living under the same
roof, is a part of our life, and is in need.

“And finally, Mary acts. Her words,
'Do whatever he tells you', addressed to the attendants, are also an
invitation to us to open our hearts to Jesus, who came to serve and
not to be served. Service is the sign of true love. Those who love
know how to serve others. We learn this especially in the family,
where we become servants out of love for one another. In the heart
of the family, no one is rejected; all have the same value. I
remember once how my mother was asked which of her five children –
we are five brothers – did she love the most. And she said: it is
like the fingers on my hand, if I prick one of them, then it is as if
the others are pricked also. A mother loves her children as they are.
And in the family, children are loved as they are. None are rejected.
'In the family we learn how to ask without demanding, to say “thank
you” as an expression of genuine gratitude for what we have been
given, to control our aggressivity and greed, and to ask forgiveness
when we have caused harm, when we quarrel, because in all families
there are quarrels. The challenge is to then ask for forgiveness.
These simple gestures of heartfelt courtesy help to create a culture
of shared life and respect for our surroundings'. The family is the
nearest hospital; when a family member is ill, it is in the home that
they are cared for as long as possible. The family is the first
school for the young, the best home for the elderly. The family
constitutes the best 'social capital'. It cannot be replaced by other
institutions. It needs to be helped and strengthened, lest we lose
our proper sense of the services which society as a whole provides.
Those services which society offers to its citizens are not a type of
alms, but rather a genuine 'social debt' with respect to the
institution of the family, which is foundational and which
contributes to the common good.

“The family is also a small Church,
called a 'domestic Church' which, along with life, also mediates
God’s tenderness and mercy. In the family, we imbibe faith with our
mother’s milk. When we experience the love of our parents, we feel
the closeness of God’s love.

“In the family, and we are all
witnesses of this, miracles are performed with what little we have,
with what we are, with what is at hand… and many times, it is not
ideal, it is not what we dreamt of, nor what 'should have been'.
There is one detail that makes us think: the new wine, that good wine
mentioned by the steward at the wedding feast of Cana, came from the
water jars, the jars used for ablutions, we might even say from the
place where everyone had left their sins … it came from the 'worst'
because 'where sin increased, grace abounded all the more'. In our
own families and in the greater family to which we all belong,
nothing is thrown away, nothing is useless. Shortly before the
opening of the Jubilee Year of Mercy, the Church will celebrate the
Ordinary Synod devoted to the family, deepen her spiritual
discernment and consider concrete solutions and help to the many
difficult and significant challenges facing families today. I ask you
to pray fervently for this intention, so that Christ can take even
what might seem to us impure, like the water in the jars scandalising
or threatening us, and turn it – by making it part of his 'hour' –
into a miracle. The family today needs this miracle.

“All this began because 'they had no
wine'. It could all be done because a woman – the Virgin Mary –
was attentive, left her concerns in God’s hands and acted sensibly
and courageously. But there is a further detail, the best was to
come: everyone went on to enjoy the finest of wines. And this is the
good news: the finest wines are yet to be tasted; for families, the
richest, deepest and most beautiful things are yet to come. The time
is coming when we will taste love daily, when our children will come
to appreciate the home we share, and our elderly will be present each
day in the joys of life. The finest of wines is expressed by hope,
this wine will come for every person who stakes everything on love.
And the best wine is yet to come, in spite of all the variables and
statistics which say otherwise. The best wine will come to those who
today feel hopelessly lost. Say it to yourselves until you are
convinced of it. Say it to yourselves, in your hearts: the best wine
is yet to come. Whisper it to the hopeless and the loveless. Have
patience, hope, and follow Mary’s example, pray, open your heart,
because the best wine is yet to come. God always seeks out the
peripheries, those who have run out of wine, those who drink only of
discouragement. Jesus feels their weakness, in order to pour out the
best wines for those who, for whatever reason, feel that all their
jars have been broken”.

After his final blessing, the Pope
transferred by car to the Colegio Javier of the Society of Jesus,
founded in 1856, and where there are currently 1560 students. The
community is made up of 20 Jesuit fathers, with whom the Pope
lunched. Following a brief rest he returned to Quito to meet with the
president of the Republic.

Vatican City, 7 July 2015 (VIS) – The
Pope spent the last part of his second day in Ecuador in the capital,
Quito, where he paid a courtesy visit to President Rafael Correa at
Carondelet Palace, the seat of the government. Built in the late
eighteenth century by the Spanish architect Antonio Garcia, it is
located in the historic centre of the city and owes its name to the
governor Francisco Luis Hector, baron of Carondelet, under whose
mandate it was constructed. During the colonial period it was known
as the Royal Palace, but according to legend Simon Bolivar, in
admiration of its facade, changed its name in memory of the governor.

Upon arrival President Correa greeted
the Pope with a warm embrace; they then entered the Protocol Room
where they spoke in private. The president subsequently introduced
his family to the Holy Father and gifts were exchanged. Francis gave
the Ecuadorian head of State a mosaic depicting the Virgin and Child,
a copy realised by the Vatican Museums mosaic laboratory of the image
from the Chapel of the Most Holy Sacrament of the Roman basilica of
St. Paul Outside-the-Walls, before which St. Ignatius of Loyola and
his first followers gave their religious vows on 22 August 1541,
thereby originating the Society of Jesus.

At the end of his visit, the bishop of
Rome and the president appeared at the balcony of Carondelet Palace
to greet the crowd gathered in Plaza de la Independencia. The Pope
travelled on foot the fifty metres between the Palace and the
Metropolitan Cathedral of Quito, which invokes the Coronation of the
Virgin Mary. The Cathedral, completed in 1585, represents a
combination of styles, from the Gothic-Mudejar (Moorish) to Baroque
and neo-Classical, and it houses the remains of Antonio Jose
Francisco de Sucre y Alcala, the Mariscal Sucre (1795-1830), hero of
South American independence.

The Holy Father entered the cathedral
where he was received by the rector; after greeting various sick and
disabled people gathered inside, he prayed a moment. Upon leaving,
almost at night-time, he blessed the thousands of people congregated
in the square, setting aside the brief discourse he had previously
prepared, and addressed the following words to them:

“I give you my blessing, to each one
of you, to your families, to all your loved ones and to the great and
noble Ecuadorian people, so that there may be no more difference, no
more exclusion, so that no-one is discarded, so that all may be
brothers, so that everyone is included and no-one is left out of this
great Ecuadorian nation. To every one of you and your families, I
give my blessing. But first, let us pray the Hail Mary together...”.

“May the blessing of God Almighty, of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, descend upon you
and remain with you for ever. And please, I ask you to pray for me.
Good night, and see you tomorrow”.

Today, 7 July, Pope Francis will meet
the bishops of Ecuador and will celebrate Holy Mass in the
Bicentenario Park in Quito. Later he will visit the Pontifical
Catholic University of Ecuador, where he will receive the keys to the
capital in the Church of St. Francis and address those present. He
will conclude the day with a private visit to the Church of the
Society of Jesus.

The following is the brief discourse
the Pope had prepared, to be given outside Quito Cathedral:

“I have come to Quito as a pilgrim,
to share with you the joy of spreading the Gospel. When I left the
Vatican, I passed the statue of Saint Mariana de Jesus, who from the
apse of St. Peter’s Basilica keeps watch over the little street
which the Pope travels so often. I entrusted to her the fruits of
this visit, and I prayed that all of us might learn from her example.
Her sacrifice and her heroic virtue are usually represented by a
flower, a lily. Yet, at St. Peter’s she holds a whole bouquet of
flowers. Along with her own flower, she offers the Lord, in the heart
of the Church, your flowers, and the flowers of all the people of
Ecuador.

“The Saints call us to imitate them
and to learn from them. This was the case with St. Narcisa de Jesus
and Blessed Mercedes de Jesus Molina, who were challenged by St.
Mariana’s example. How many of you here today have known what it is
to be orphaned? How many of you have had to assume the responsibility
of looking after younger brothers or sisters, despite being young
yourselves? How many of you care daily with great patience for the
sick or the elderly? Mariana did just this, and Narcisa and Mercedes
followed her example. It is not difficult if God is with us. They
accomplished no great feats in the eyes of the world. They simply
loved much, and they showed this love in their daily lives, touching
the suffering flesh of Christ in others, in his people. Nor did they
do this alone, they did it 'side by side' with others. All the work
that went into the building of this Cathedral was done that same way,
our way, the way of the native peoples, quietly and unassumingly
working alongside one another for the good of the community, without
seeking credit or applause. God grant that, just as the stones of
this cathedral were carried by those who went before us, we may carry
one another’s burdens, and thus help to build up or heal the lives
of so many of our brothers and sisters incapable of doing it by
themselves.

“Today I am here with you, and you
have shared with me the joy which fills your hearts: 'How beautiful
upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good tidings'. This
is the beauty we are called to spread, like an aroma of Christ: our
prayer, our good works, and our sacrifices for those most in need.
This is the joy of evangelising and 'blessed are you if you do these
things'.